Three European hostages freed by Bangladesh kidnappers wave as they arrive in Dhaka from Chittagong hill tracts on Saturday.
— Reuters photo

Dhaka, March 17Tribal kidnappers freed three European hostages exactly after 30 days of captivity in a deep forest area in the southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts at dawn today. However, according to a PTI report, the hostages were freed after a commando raid.

CIA needs recruits to spy in India,
PakistanWashington, March 17The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has created a special cell to “aggressively recruit” agents to penetrate the nuclear weapons establishments of India and Pakistan so that it will not be caught napping as it was when New Delhi carried out the Pokhran nuclear tests in May, 1998.

Lanka ‘flexible’ on
draft statuteColombo, March 17Sri Lanka is willing to discuss any issue that the LTTE may raise in future direct talks and will not be bound by the draft constitution that it unsuccessfully presented to Parliament last August, Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L Peiris has said.

Pak to allow
Opposition views on mediaKarachi, March 17Pakistan’s military regime has decided to allow opposition politicians to air their views on its policies on state-run radio and television, a senior military official said today.

Koirala hints at mid-term
pollKathmandu, March 17Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has hinted that mid-term elections may be announced if the present impasse in Parliament continues.

Taliban ultimatum
to PakistanIslamabad, March 17A week after Pakistan denounced its close ally, Taliban, for their decision to destroy 2000-year-old Buddha statues, the Afghan militia have served an ultimatum on Pakistan asking it to vacate two border posts at the Pak-Afghan border or “face dire consequences.”

Blast: China on
trail of suspectShijiazhuang, March 17The Chinese police today named a deaf murderer as the chief suspect behind four huge explosions in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang which hospital sources said killed at least 110 persons.

30 illegal immigrants
die in shipwrecksMiami, March 17At least 30 persons, many of them from the Dominican Republic, died and more than 60 were missing after two boats thought to be carrying illegal migrants sank in separate incidents in the Caribbean, officials from countries in the region said.

European hostages in Bangladesh
freedAtiqur Rahman
Tribune News Service

Dhaka, March 17
Tribal kidnappers freed three European hostages exactly after 30 days of captivity in a deep forest area in the southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) at dawn today. However, according to a PTI report, the hostages were freed after a commando raid. Mr Torben Mikkleson 48, Mr Nils Huggard (64) of Denmark and Mr Tim Shelby (28) of Britain emerged from a forest near an army camp at Kathtali under Ghagra Zone at about 5.30am today and were in good health. The army shifted them to the Kutukchari camp immediately after they walked into the Kathtali camp ending 30 days of their captivity.

The wife and six-year old son of Mr Mikkleson of Denmark were scheduled to arrive in Dhaka today to appeal to the captors for release of the hostages.

The kidnappers, numbering more than a dozen, escaped through the ‘safe passage’ created by the Bangladesh army to cross the security cordon put up immediately after the kidnapping was reported. No organisation has claimed responsibility though the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), an organisation of the tribal Chakma tribe opposing the peace accord signed in 1998 was blamed by all quarters. The UPDF denied involvement in such an act. The peace accord brought an end to insurgency in the CHT.

No ransom was paid to the kidnappers. However a written guarantee by the administration was given to the kidnappers for providing amnesty to them

with an assurance that no legal action would be taken against them.

Two Danes and two Britons and their driver were kidnapped near Naniarchar in Khagrachari Hill District on the afternoon of February 16 by armed tribesmen. On the same day, Mr David Weston, an engineer from Britain and the driver, Mr Abdul Motaleb, were released to communicate the demand

for ransom of Bangladesh taka 9 crore. The four engineers went to Khagrachari without a security escort normally provided by the army. They

were engaged in a survey of the Khagrachari highway for development financed by the Danish Development Agency and employed by Kampsex, a Danish construction firm.

The Bangladesh Government, Bangladesh army and Bangladesh Rifles, who were manning the security cordon in a 30 mile radius, the Chittagong Hill Tract Administration, headed by the Minister Kalpa Ranjan Chakma, tribal legislator Dipankar Talukdar and the local
administration, heaved a sigh of relief after the emergence of the hostages in good health.

At the initial stage, Mr Chakma was negotiating with the kidnappers and a tentative arrangement was made for the release of the hostages before Eid on March 7. But reports in a section of newspapers that the freedom of the hostages was arranged on payment of a ransom of Taka 1 crore resulted in further delay because the kidnappers suspected that they were deprived of the money paid by the foreigners . They even refused to negotiate with Mr Chakma. However, Mr Talukdar was given the responsibility and he established many channels of negotiations through relatives of the kidnappers. Earlier the authorities had taken into custody 35 relatives of the kidnappers which indicated that the authorities knew exactly who were involved in the act. Even erection of flags indicating safe passage for the kidnappers were examples that the army knew the location where the hostages were held.

After about 10 days, the authorities could send food , medicine and drinking water for the hostages through mediators . One quack was also sent to treat Mr Hugaard who was sick. The entire area is infested with malaria.

Two experts from the Scotland Yard and one from Denmark joined the Bangladesh authorities to secure the release of the hostages. Recently three more experts joined the team at the Rangamati Hill District headquarter.

Washington, March 17
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has created a special cell to “aggressively recruit” agents to penetrate the nuclear weapons establishments of India and Pakistan so that it will not be caught napping as it was when New Delhi carried out the Pokhran nuclear tests in May, 1998.

The CIA would also employ some of the most sophisticated satellites to keep a close watch on the nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programmes of the two countries, intelligence sources said.

The CIA has not forgotten how it had been made a laughing stock because of its failure to detect the Indian tests and the agency suffered untold humiliation with late night comedians like Jay Leno saying CIA stood for “Can’t Identify Anything,” and lawmakers like Rep John Traficant, Ohio Democrat, saying the billions of dollars given the CIA each year by Congress would be better spent if it were provided to CNN, because this news network caught the tests before the CIA did.

Reeling from the ignominy, the sources said CIA Director George Tenet was determined to completely revamp the intelligence capabilities of the agency, both by means of sophisticated technology, as well as by “the old fashioned way” of recruiting agents and posting its own agents in countries like India and Pakistan, where in recent years, spying had ground to a halt.

The sources said the CIA had already obtained the appropriation from Congress for the resurrection of these covert activities in many nations, including India and Pakistan, by selling the line that the weapons programmes of these nations posed a threat to the stability of the region and America’s own national security interests.

The newly created special cell will have special country officers for India and Pakistan and a team of specialists to track perceived clandestine transfers from the two countries as well as China, North Korea and Russia.

The sources said the cell would come under the rubric of a unit that has been created by Tenet comprising 500 analysts, scientists and support personnel to focus on non-proliferation and arms control issues.

Called the Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center, the unit is envisaged to bring three existing CIA analytic staff together under Alan Foley, a veteran Soviet military analyst, who as head of the Arms Control Intelligence Staff has spent the last three years supporting arms control treaty negotiators.

Last week, in announcing the creation of the Weapons Intelligence, Non-proliferation and Arms Control Center, Tenet said he was striving for “increased synergy on key missile and nuclear issues as well as better integration between payload and delivery systems analyses.”

According to the sources, a conscious decision had been taken by Tenet and several other senior agency officials - many of whom remained cold War warriors that the CIA should have it own agenda and not be influenced by any of the non-proliferation and security diplomatic track being conducted with India and Pakistan by State Department and White House officials.

The CIA was convinced, these sources said, that deliberations and assurances that Washington may extract from New Delhi or Islamabad were of no use since these countries, whatever they may say, were not going to slow down, let alone abandon, their weaponisation programmes.

The sources said that this kind of a perspective has struck a chord in Pentagon circles too, particularly in its own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), more so now that new Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is considered a hawk and also most definitely a cold war warrior.

Last month, Rumsfeld shocked the pro-India lobby here and undoubtedly the powers that be in New Delhi when appearing on the much respected PBS new programme, the Jim Lehrer News Hour, that the sales of weapons technologies to the likes of India, North Korea and Iran was a major proliferation problem the Bush administration would have to deal with.

Rumsfeld warned that these technologies in the hands of India, North Korea and Iran “are threatening other people including the U.S.A., western Europe and countries in West Asia.”
IANS

Colombo, March 17
Sri Lanka is willing to discuss any issue that the LTTE may raise in future direct talks and will not be bound by the draft constitution that it unsuccessfully presented to Parliament last August, Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L Peiris has said.

“The government is ready to reconsider its offer made in the draft Constitution, if such a demand is made by the LTTE when negotiations begin,” Mr Peiris told the Foreign Correspondents Association here last night.

“The underlying principles and the spirit of the draft are more important than the text, and the negotiations would be of use only if the government is open to more suggestions,” he said.

Mr Peiris was responding to a question on the LTTE rejecting the political package of devolution of powers envisaged in the draft and, instead, insisting that due recognition for Tamil language, the concept of a Tamil homeland and right to self-determination should be the basis for talks.

The main Opposition United National Party had opposed the government’s move on August 3, 2000, to rush the draft Constitution through Parliament.

UNP MP Tyronne Fernando, who was also present at last night’s interaction, said his party had not disagreed with the substance of the draft, but was against pushing through a Constitution without the involvement of the LTTE.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, in her Independence Day Address last month, had underscored the importance she attached to devolution of power as envisaged in the draft Constitution.

Mr Peiris said the draft went far beyond any other peace proposal in the past and reflected the government’s political will to solve the problem.

On the government’s war against the LTTE, he said its aim was to contain its attack capability and force it to come to the negotiating table, adding that the government disfavoured a military solution.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has accused the LTTE of more violations of its own ceasefire, claiming that the rebels have directed mortar and artillery fire in the northern Jaffna peninsula army positions, injuring a soldier.

Karachi, March 17
Pakistan’s military regime has decided to allow opposition politicians to air their views on its policies on state-run radio and television, a senior military official said today.

“The opposition parties will soon be invited for live discussions as part of the government policy to open up the electronic media,” Major-Gen Rashid Qureshi told AFP.

“You will soon notice a visible change in the news coverage and a kind of freedom which even the so-called democratic governments in the country did not give,” said General Qureshi, who is spokesman for the military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf.

The regime banned outdoor political activities, including public meetings and rallies soon after General Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in October, 1999.

“Top opposition leaders will be invited to express their views on government policies so that the people should also get the opporunity to listen to criticism on our policies,” General Qureshi said.

He said the decision was the first “major step” aimed at liberalising the electronic media.
AFP

Kathmandu, March 17
Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has hinted that mid-term elections may be announced if the present impasse in Parliament continues.

“Although the talk of mid-term polls is just a rumour (so far), if the situation remains the same, there is a possibility,” Koirala said, adding “that option (of mid-term elections) is not in my imagination right now.”

Koirala, under intense pressure to resign from the Opposition and also from members within his ruling Nepal Congress party, was talking to reporters at his hometown of Biratnagar, some 250 km east of Kathmandu.

The five-party Opposition alliance, led by the main Opposition Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), has been obstructing the winter session of Parliament since February 8 demanding Koirala’s resignation over his “possible” involvement in a huge financial scandal relating to leasing of aircraft from Austrian Lauda Air.

The Opposition says Koirala must resign to pave way for investigation of the Commission of Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) into the financial irregularity, and have so far succeeded in obstructing Parliament.

But an angry Koirala, said, “I will not stay in the chair (of Prime Minister), for even a minute if CIAA or the Supreme Court indict me in the ‘Lauda case.”’
IANS

Islamabad, March 17
A week after Pakistan denounced its close ally, Taliban, for their decision to destroy 2000-year-old Buddha statues, the Afghan militia have served an ultimatum on Pakistan asking it to vacate two border posts at the Pak-Afghan border or “face dire consequences.”

“Commander of Taliban Border Force Qari Muhmmad Ismail has written a letter to the political administration of Pakistan’s Khyber Agency and the head of Khyber Rifles, manning the 2000-km porous borders between the two countries, to provide legal proof that the border posts at Bara and Ayub belonged to it or vacate it,” Pakistan military officials at northern town of Peshawar said last night.

Ismail warned his counterpart of “dire consequences” if the two posts were not vacated. His letter followed a mysterious bomb explosion near Pakistan Consulate in Afghanistan’s Jalalabad town yesterday. Reports from Peshawar said the blast took place at a madarasa (Islamic seminary) close to the Pakistani Consulate. However, it failed to cause much damage, Taliban officials said.

Ismail’s letter to the Pakistan border police followed sudden eruption of clashes between the border guards of two countries two days ago. The situation became tense when Taliban militiamen obstructed Pakistan border officials from removing Taliban flags hoisted in what Pakistan officials claimed as their territory.
PTI

Shijiazhuang, March 17
The Chinese police today named a deaf murderer as the chief suspect behind four huge explosions in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang which hospital sources said killed at least 110 persons.

A police spokesman in the city said 41-year-old Jin Ruchao, on run for the murder of his girlfriend, was being sought in connection with yesterday’s explosions around a complex of cotton factories.

However, some workers at the state-owned factories targeted by the blasts told AFP they believed disgruntled workers carried out the coordinated attacks because of fears over mass layoffs.

“Jin Ruchao is the main suspect,” said the police spokesman, declining to give his name.

The Legal Daily and the China Police Daily carried black and white photos today of Jin along with details of an arrest warrant and a 50,000 yuan (6,000 dollars) reward.

Jin is wanted for the March 9 killing of his girlfriend, Wei Zhihua, in Maguan county in the southern province of Yunnan, said the warrant.

The suspected bomber had two rooms in the 15th and 16th dormitories of Shijiazhuang No 3 cotton factory’s residential area where one of the major blasts occurred, said the papers.

Mr Sun Wanglin, a police official in Manguan County near the Vietnamese border, told AFP that Jin killed his lover after she refused to return home with him to Shijiazhuang, at the other end of the country.
AFP

Miami, March 17
At least 30 persons, many of them from the Dominican Republic, died and more than 60 were missing after two boats thought to be carrying illegal migrants sank in separate incidents in the Caribbean, officials from countries in the region said.

The double tragedy — the wrecks occurred off Haiti and the small island of St Martin — highlighted the grim toll from a constant trickle of migrants in the Caribbean who try to seek a better life by setting out for more prosperous countries in often overcrowded and small vessels.

Officials in the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, yesterday said that more than 15 persons from neighbouring Dominican Republic died and more than 40 were missing and feared dead after their boat sank off a small island near the south-west of Haiti.

“There were more than 15 bodies found,’’ said Mr Yolaine Surena, director of Haiti’s Civil Protection office. “The boat sank while they were on their way to Puerto Rico.’’

Two persons survived and one of them, 19-year-old Carlos Pinales, told officials that the vessel Les Canotes, with about 60 persons on board, was lost at sea for 24 days after its engine had broken down.
Reuters

WORLD BRIEFS

WE HELD HANDLE FOR 24
HOURS: CREW
Moscow: The crew of a hijacked Russian plane held on to the handle of the cockpit door for nearly 24 hours to prevent the hijackers getting in, the navigator said after a dramatic rescue at Medina airport by Saudi special forces. “We were afraid that the lock might give in,” the unnamed navigator told the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti. The engineer had managed to escape through a window to inform the authorities about the situation on board the plane and tell them where the doors and emergency exits were located.
AFP

FORTIER’S SENTENCE UPHELD
Denver: A federal appeals court has upheld Michael Fortier’s 12-year prison term in the Oklahoma City bombing, rejecting arguments that the judge was vindictive and improperly exceeded the sentencing guidelines. The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling on Friday, said US District Judge Thomas Van Bebber could impose a longer sentence than the guidelines called for because of the enormity of the crime. The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killed 168 persons and injured more than 500.
AP

NUDE LAP DANCE BY LECTURER
London: A group of drama students in England gave their university lecturer an ovation after watching her perform naked as part of a solo performing arts show on lap dancing, according to a report. Friday’s report in The Times said Prof Cathy MacGregor, who holds a doctorate in drama and feminist theory, used her personal experiences working as a lap dancer in the USA to develop her controversial 50-minute stage show about the world of a striptease artist.
DPA

ANOTHER 43 CHARGED OVER RACE RIOTS
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian prosecutors have charged another 43 persons over ethnic clashes which left six dead last week, newspapers said on Saturday. This took to 75 the number charged with various offences linked to clashes between Indians and Malays which wounded almost 30 persons in a poor neighbourhood outside the capital. The police declined to comment on the additional charges. Five soldiers were among those charged for offences including assault, possession of weapons and unlawful assembly.
Reuters

TALIBAN SHUT DOWN BEAUTY PARLOURS
Islamabad: Afghanistan’s radical Taliban rulers had ordered beauty parlours in the country’s western Herat city to close down for violating Islamic Sharia laws, reports said. Also, the Taliban Department of Eliminating Vice and Promoting Virtue arrested five persons for giving non-Sharia hair cuts to women, Pakistan’s widely-read Urdu newspaper Jang reported. Bath houses for women are already closed in the town on the Iranian border.
DPA

SENEGAL SIGNS PACT WITH SEPARATISTS
Dakar (Senegal): Senegal’s government and separatist rebels signed a cease-fire in their 18-year conflict in the troubled southern province of Casamance. However, uncertainty about whether one violent faction of the rebels would comply raised doubts about the overall strength of the cease-fire signed on Friday. Interior Affairs Minister Mamadou Niang signed the deal with Rev. Diamacoune Senghor, leader of the rebel movement of the Democratic Forces of Casamance, in the province’s city of Ziguinchor. The rebels have been fighting for autonomy for casamance.
AP

BUSH TO VISIT JAPAN, CHINA, S. KOREA
Washington: US President George Bush will travel to Asia next October to meet with officials in Japan and South Korea before making his first official visit to China, the White House has said. Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Mr Bush would stop in Tokyo and Seoul before attending a summit meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Shanghai, following which he will hold talks with China’s top leaders in Beijing. The White House said on Friday that dates and other details will be announced as they become available.
PTI

BUS DRIVER FLEES AS NINE KILLED
Islamabad: Nine persons were killed on Saturday when a bus ran over an auto-rickshaw in the southern Pakistan city of Bahawalpur, the police said. The victims included the driver and eight passengers of the auto-rickshaw which was crushed by the bus coming from the opposite direction, they said.
AFP

AFGHAN COMMANDER ‘DEFECTS’
Kabul: An Afghan opposition commander and 150 of his men have switched over to the Taliban movement in the eastern province of Kunar, Radio Shariat reported on Saturday. Commander Gul Amir defected on Thursday after realising that resistance against the Taliban was “futile”, it said.
AFP

MUJIB’S BIRTH ANNIVERSARY
Dhaka: Thousands of Bangladeshis carrying flowers converged on the private residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahmna in Dhaka on Saturday to mark the 81st birthday of the country’s founder President. Men, women and children paid homage to Mujib, who spearheaded the independence war against Pakistan in 1971 but was assassinated by rebel army officers four years later.
DPA